City baby names - The online computery journal thingy of a turtle

Apr. 26th, 2011

02:51 pm - City baby names

One popular baby-naming fad is to name the baby after a city, such as Brooklyn, Madison, Orlando, Dallas, Charlotte, or Aspen. (Those are the names listed in the cartoon linked above; funny, but I coulda sworn "Madison" and "Charlotte" were well-established girl's names.)

What would be the worst town to name a baby after? My vote: Cut and Shoot, TX.

Comments:

Among U.S. towns, I nominate Hell, MI, and Deadhorse, AK. And "Brainerd" is likely to get your kid bullied, too.

"Charlotte" has definitely been around long (consider the Bronte sister) and was probably a first name before it ever became a town. "Madison" had gained much popularity in the last quarter-century. I don't know anyone named Orlando except in fiction. "Brooklyn" and "Dallas" are utterly unknown to me as first names. "Aspen" is actually rarer than I realized when I named my cartoon snake, which is why readers sometimes get her gender wrong even knowing her name.

I see what happened. You included a link in your comment, and ran afoul of LiveJournal's aggressive new anti-spam measures. I've unspammed it, and I turned off the option on my LJ to autoscreen spam (which was ON by DEFAULT, GEE THANKS for TELLING ME, LJ).

Charlotte is a well-established name from the 1700s, yes. But Madison...well, Madison is a bit different.

Madison was completely unknown as a girl's name until 1984. Before about 1950, it was an common boy's name, but it died out, the way names do. Then, in 1984, despite Tom Hanks protesting that it wasn't a name, Daryl Hannah's character in the film Splash named herself Madison after a street sign on the famous avenue--and the rest is baby name history. In 1985, it was the #2 name for a girl in the United States.

I take comfort and joy in the fact that, ultimately, every girl and woman under the age of 27 who bears the given name Madison is named after some damp girl Tom Hanks found wandering naked under the Statue of Liberty.